TechCrunch (Meri Beckwith) — It would be hard to argue that digital products have a net-positive impact on our health. Most are designed to provide the same dopamine hit as a slot machine. We all know someone who wasted their youth playing games that were designed to be all-consuming, with the World Health Organization recently going so far as to categorize video game addiction as a mental health disorder.
STAT News (Rebecca Robbins Adam Feuerstein) — One of the hottest fields in health care investing is digital health. Companies in the space collectively raised $3.4 billion in venture capital in the first half of this year, spread across 193 deals, according to a count from the venture firm Rock Health. If that pace continues, the sector will set a new record this year — both in terms of number of deals and VC money invested overall.
MobiHealthNews (Laura Lovett) — A drug no longer needs to be a tangible object, according to panelist at the BIO 2018 convention in Boston. The way the pharma industry looks at medication is evolving and may be including new tech-focused treatments, such as digital therapeutics. “If you think about the trajectory of medicine what is a drug these days: is it a pill, is it an injection, is it infusion, is it gene therapy? We’ve created some artificial constructs in the industry,” Jeremy Sohn, vice president and global head of digital business development and licensing at Novartis, said at a panel discussion on Wednesday. “The thing that is always constant, as the FDA will tell us, is it is about data-driven processes that allow us to demonstrate efficacy and truth.” […]
New York Times (Natasha Singer) — Health tech companies are making a big push to digitize medicine, introducing novel tools like digital pills that track when patients take their drugs and smart spoons that can automatically adjust to hand tremors. Now they want some patients to get prescription treatments from the app store as well.
Later this year, doctors treating patients addicted to substances like cocaine and amphetamines will be able to prescribe Reset, an app that gives patients lessons to help them modify their behavior. The Food and Drug Administration cleared it in September as the first mobile medical app to help treat substance-use disorders.
STAT News (Casey Ross) — The pitches always sounded promising: A new software app could track glucose levels for people with diabetes or soothe the brains of insomniacs. Most pharma executives would politely smile and nod, but then park their money somewhere else. Not anymore.
MobiHealthNews (Dave Muoio) — From syringes to workflow management systems, healthcare is no stranger to adopting new technologies into standard care. As digital and connected technologies continue to stake their claim in the industry, the last few years have seen the rise of a new type of health technology product — one that promises measurable health outcomes validated by traditional clinical trials.
McKinsey & Company — Digital therapeutics have made much progress over the past decade, harnessing technology to supplement or potentially replace traditional clinical therapy. Some devices complement traditional treatment by helping patients manage their condition, including informing when and how much medication to take. And some offer alternative treatments to drugs, such as sensory stimuli delivered through a tablet computer to manage insomnia or depression.
The Economist — Luann Stottlemyer has had diabetes for 23 years, but it was only in 2016 that her doctor prescribed a treatment that changed her life. It has allowed her to bring her blood-sugar levels under control and lose weight. Yet this miracle of modern science is not a new pill. It is a smartphone app called BlueStar.
The Economist — This week three of the biggest names in American business—Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase—announced a new venture to provide better, cheaper health care for their employees. A fundamental problem with today’s system is that patients lack knowledge and control. Access to data can bestow both.
PharmaVoice (Denise Myshko) — Imagine instead of a pill, a doctor prescribes a game for a child with attention deficit disorder. Or imagine patients dealing with substance abuse being prescribed assessments they can do via a mobile device to track progress.
These software programs are part of a new class of therapeutics — digital medicines — that can lead to changes in behavior and provide clinical benefit. But digital therapeutics go beyond games or behavior modification programs; they are digital tools that have been tested in clinical trials to assess safety and efficacy. Digital therapeutics represent a new generation of healthcare that use innovative, clinically validated disease management, and treatment technologies to enhance, and in some cases replace, current medical practices and treatments.